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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

A Fair Weekend

Not a fair weekend as in fine, but a weekend spent at the Iowa State Fair. Well, a day of it at least. I swore that we weren't going to go this year. Yet Sunday morning everyone wanted to go for a bit. So we did. Friday night we went to dinner at Gilroy's with family. It was the perfect night on the patio. Saturday we chilled at home during the day then ran errands in the late afternoon/evening so that Sunday could be our play day.

Gilroy's has one of my favorite patios in Des Moines! It's large, covered, has fans for when it's hot out, sofas to lounge on, and the TV's showing the Olympic coverage. It was a great Friday night with a leisurely dinner. The patio was great for the kids because they were able to laugh and play without disturbing the other diners.

Saturday at home consisted of dressing up the cat in doll clothes, cleaning, and laundry. Nothing too exciting but stuff that needed done.

Years ago, well before kids, Hubs and I would spend date nights in book stores. We'd get coffees after some fabulous dinner, browse books, and then cozy up in the book store chairs and read our books we picked out. Then we'd have some fascinating conversations about the state of the world or something funny we'd read. Now when we go to book stores I'm sitting in the children's area reading to the kids about bears (how to tell the difference between black bears and brown bears). Even though it may not have been quite as glorious as our pre-kid book store browsing days, I did actually learn a few things about bears!

"Here mom, let me hold your purse," said Elizabeth as we grocery shopped. She then wouldn't return my purse (she says she's waiting for me to hand it down to her....my brand new Coach purse) and had the other shoppers in stitches

We watched Michael Phelps swim for the last time, among other Olympic events. The kids are sooo into the Olympics this year. We've been tuning in nightly to watch the events unfold.

We actually got a good start to the day on Sunday....but our early start was foiled by a trip to HyVee for contact solution and Gatorade. Then the parking at the Iowa State Fair was a HORRENDOUS mess. For the first time ever we parked in someone's yard (for those not from Iowa, yes this is a thing. We didn't just randomly park in someone's yard. A lot of houses near the fairgrounds turn their yards into makeshift parking lots and charge for parking). We actually parked closer to the Fair's front gates than we would have if we parked in the Fair's second lot. Either way there was a lot of walking involved on Sunday!

The Learning Center for Kids is my favorite building. We saw piglets not even 30 minutes old, with their umbilical cords still attached. Sure the kids had a lot of questions (and a few disgusting faces were made....mostly by me) but it was such a great learning experience for them. Plus, we got to do a free photo booth. Check out the photos here on Instagram.

The newly born piglets.

The butter cow is always a favorite. This year Star Trek and Captain Kirk was also done in butter.

Deep fried Oreo's are the kid's favorite treat. Those and corn dogs are a must.

Our 'We're Not Going To The Fair, But Then We Did' selfie.

The minis loved the IPTV (PBS) booth in the Varied Industries building. They came home with a ton of bags, souvenirs, and wash off tattoos from this building.

After the fair, we decided to cool off at the water park, Adventure Bay. We spent the evening there crashing into the waves in the wave pool, practicing their new swimming moves in the pirate pool, and closing down the water park. We may have had a busy, long day, but it was a fantastic family fun day to "celebrate" (although I'm not really celebrating because I love summer and I'm sad to see it end) one of the last weekend's of summer.

Feeding the fish in the pond at Adventureland.

You know it was a good day when you're not even out of the parking lot and one of the minis are asleep!

I haven't decided how we're going to spend this next week, but I'd like it to be special since it's the last weekend before school starts! I can't believe it's this time of year already. We've had marvelous summer, but I feel that there's sooo much we didn't have the time to fit in.